Thrones of Britannia: Allegiance Update Beta

Total War Saga: THRONES OF BRITANNIA

Ella McConnell

July 17 2018

This update will introduce a variety of changes to the game to address player feedback and improve the overall experience. The biggest change – and the one the update is named after – is the addition of Allegiance to the game.

We saw a number of players really missed the Religion mechanic from ATTILA and the Culture mechanic of ROME II, so we’ve introduced Allegiance to fulfil that role while being more in keeping with the time period for Thrones and the design of the game overall. Adding this feature will also tie in to several others that were identified as areas for improvement, mostly politics and how provinces work.

We’ve also made changes to the building trees – resulting in a lot more variety and choice – plus worked on Politics, Estates, Balance, and bug fixes. Full details of the update are below, but please do opt in, try the changes for yourself, and let us know what you think here.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to how you can get involved:

Restart Steam

Find Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia in your Steam library

Right click Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia and go to Properties in the drop-down menu

Go to the Betas tab

In the drop-down menu under Select the beta you would like to opt into: select allegiance_1 –

A few key things to bear in mind before you get started:

IMPORTANT: The update is save game compatible but the changes we’ve implemented may impact your campaign (also many changes will only apply to new save games)

This beta is the first iteration of the Allegiance Update – more will be added in a new beta before the update is fully deployed to all players

Please start a new campaign to get the full experience of the changes we have made

None of the changes below have been localised yet – text only exists in English

Some of new traits and buildings are missing description text – this will be added in a future update to the beta

Male characters on the family tree without a wife will incorrectly show the “Arrange Marriage” button on the panel on the left of the screen instead of “Seek Wife”. However, if you click the button it will perform the “Seek Wife” action, allowing you to carry out the action there as well as on their details panel

Major Changes

Allegiance

This feature is based on Religion from ATTILA and the Culture mechanic of ROME II but, to better match what was going on during the time period and the design of the game overall, it has been reimagined as “Allegiance”

All playable factions have their own Allegiance, with minor factions sharing group Allegiances such as English Kingdoms etc.

Allegiance is spread by the current level of faction leader influence, as well as certain Followers and Traits characters can have

The presence of other Allegiances in your provinces causes a negative public order impact that scales with the size of the other Allegiances present

The effects from taxes have been changed so that there is a smaller base penalty to public order, but each tax level gives an increasing multiplier to the effect of other Allegiances on public order

The public order impact from occupying settlements has also been removed, so that the main public order impact on taking a settlement is the levels of different Allegiances present in a province. Take back a settlement you lost a turn before, you’ll see minimal or no public order problems. Take one deep in foreign territory and it will take time for the Allegiance to shift to your own

Characters in your faction and certain events can also spread “Usurper” Allegiance, which is linked to the civil war faction for each playable faction

The faction leader can also spread Usurper Allegiance if their influence gets too low

Allegiance display has been added to province panel, province details panel, and a filter added to the strategic map

Pagan Kings

As the two playable factions who we believe were not largely Christian at this time, Dyflin and Sudreyar will now start with a new effect bundle called “Pagan Kings”. This gives bonuses to unit replenishment rate and unit morale but also spreads Usurper Allegiance

As the player conquers more regions with Church buildings or upgrades them, an event will appear with three choices:

Stay Pagan will replace the existing Pagan Kings effect bundle with one that generates lower bonuses and larger penalties

Convert King replaces the Pagan Kings effect bundle with a new one that lasts for a number of turns and generates a diplomatic relations bonus with other factions and improves faction leader influence but lowers character loyalty

Mass Convert replaces the Pagan Kings effect bundle with a new one that lasts for a number of turns and generates the reverse of its effects, so penalties to morale and unit replenishment but a bonus to public order

If the player chooses Stay Pagan, the event will appear again when more Church regions are conquered/constructed/church buildings upgraded

The event can appear up to five times, and if the player chooses to stick to paganism right up to the last one the effect bundle will be applied permanently!

Buildings

All minor settlement buildings, except for religious ones, now branch at tier 4 to give more choices in how to specialise a province. For example, the LEAD chain splits into one line giving a bonus to Church income, the other that focuses on resource production and Industry income

For major settlements, two new chains have been added for all of them: MERCHANT for Commerce income, and WORKSHOP for Industry income so you can always get income of those types from major settlements

The Bullaun chain has been added for MONASTERY settlements, which give bonuses to public order and fame

New unique settlement chains have been added to Grianan Ailech (GRIANAN OF AILECH), Achadh Bo (MONASTERY OF ST CAINNECH), and Hwitan Aerne (CHURCH OF ST RINGAN)

Tintagol has gained a unique variant of the GRANARY chain, the FOGOU chain

Several existing major settlement chains have been changed, both in their bonuses and where they can be built:

TOOLS chain can only be built in provinces with COPPER, IRON, or WOOD buildings and focuses on bonuses to those buildings

TANNER chain can only be built in provinces with the HUNTING chain

TITHE HALL chain can only be built in provinces that have either a MONASTERY main settlement or at least one ABBEY chain in the minor settlements, and also have at least one FARM, ORCHARD, or PASTURE chain in the province. The building gives bonuses to food production from those chains and also a bonus to Church income

Other new chains have also been added to major settlements which are also dependant on what other buildings exist in a province:

CRAFT MERCHANT chain that can only be built in provinces with CLOTH, POTTERY, or SALT chains and gives bonuses to those chains as well as a bonus to Industry income in the province

WAREHOUSE chain that can only be built in provinces that have at least one of the PORT building chains, and it improves income and food production of all PORT building chains in a province

CHURCH CRAFT chain that can only be built in provinces that have either a MONASTERY main settlement or at least one ABBEY chain in the minor settlements, and also have at least one COPPER, IRON, or WOOD chain in the province. The building gives bonuses to the income from those chains as well as a bonus to Church income in the province

ARTISANS chain that can only be built in provinces with GOLD, LEAD, SILVER or TIN chains and gives bonuses to income from those chains as well as a bonus to Commerce income in the province

Estates

There are now multiple types of Estates in the game:

Agricultural Estates, given by the APPLE ASH, FARM, HUNTING, ORCHARD, and PASTURE building chains. Their effects are:

Held by faction leader

+1 influence

Held by other characters

+1 influence

+1 loyalty

-100 gold

Estate Estates, given by the ESTATES building chain. Their effects are:

Held by faction leader

+2 influence

Held by other characters

+1 influence

+2 loyalty

-50 gold

Religious Estates, given by the BENEDICTINE ABBEY chain. Their effects are:

Held by faction leader

+2 faction Allegiance

Held by other characters

+1 influence

+1 loyalty

New traits and effects related to Estates have been added. Characters can now gain traits that gives them a desire to own certain type of Estates, and a loyalty penalty if that desire isn’t met. They can also want to have more Estates than the faction leader, or more than lower level characters for example

The full list of desires that traits might give is:

Desires more Estates than faction leader

Desires less Estates than faction leader

Desires more Estates than generals and governors

Desires more Estates than characters with lower Command

Desires more Estates than characters with lower Governance

Desires more Estates than characters with lower Zeal

Desires more Estates than lower level characters

Desires more Estates than everybody but the faction leader

Desires more Estates than younger characters

Desires no more Estates

The traits giving these desires can be gained either when a character is created, or a chance to gain each turn, or by the player handing out Estates to characters

All of the above mean that there is much less of a one size fits all approach in how to deal with characters and Estates, and how you might try and deal with the desires of certain characters

Politics

The faction & politics UI has had large improvements, most noticeably the Records & Statistics pages have been merged together so that the Family Tree and information on your faction could be split into separate pages

The Family Tree page has more space to show the family tree, redone character information panel that sits on the left and is where political actions can now be done, and new tabs along the bottom to show you your Generals, Governors, Statesmen, and Family Members

The Family Tree page has a new filter to show just faction leader and their immediate family to help out as the family tree grows larger over the course of the game

The cost of political actions now scales with Fame level of your faction

This means they are cheaper in the early game to try and prevent situations that can spiral out of control, but as you grow bigger they become more expensive

The outcome and effect of political actions have been adjusted to give more depth

New traits have been added that can be gained from certain political actions, such as Destined for the Throne for someone being appointed heir, or Chuffed if they’re married for example

Battle AI

Restore AI hint lines to hill tiles, and improved AI use of hint lines so it is less likely to pick ones too close to player, and will correctly use them to reposition their army as the player moves theirs

AI will no longer keep general back on his own when defending in sieges, and will now make use of him to properly defend the settlement

Improved AI behaviour when disembarking troops in coastal/port assault battles so it makes use of more drop-off points

AI will hold back its outflanking groups more to better arrive at same time as main force

AI use of cavalry, and timing of cavalry movements improved

AI missile units will now better prioritise targets, and will target the players own missile units a lot more now

Changed group formations the AI uses to better tie into how it behaves, as well to improve how it deals with flanking forces when being attacked

Bug Fixes

Battle

Fixed issue where if soldiers disembarking from a ship were given an order, the ship would withdraw resulting in the remaining soldiers on the ship jumping into the sea and dying

Campaign

Fix for crash when that happened when loading some save games

Fixed bug that allowed for unlocking of techs by firing/hiring governors repeatedly